Transmutação de rejeitos radioativos em sistemas híbridos de fusão-fissão

Abstract

A fission-fusion hybrid reactor is proposed for recycling and transmutation of highly radioactive waste. Two fusion systems were evaluated. A Tokamak, based on magnetic confinement, and another based on inertial confinement. These systems have been modified and designed to place a transmutation layer loaded with transuranic elements from spent fuel of nuclear power plants. The transmutation layer is the first presented in specific literature to be used with fuel reprocessed by the method UREX + and further spiked with depleted uranium or thorium to reduce the amount of fissile material in order to keep a subcritical system. The evaluations were carried out by varying geometric parameters such as the thickness of transmutation layer and the radius of the fuel rod. Depending on the case this variations increase the efficiency to reduce the transuranic contained in the fuel. The results show the possibility of reducing the transuranic for each model and transmutation efficiency compared to the initial amount of recycled fuel for each fusion reactor. Furthermore, a comparison of both hybrid fusion-fission systems is performed in order to find the best system to reduce transuranics efficiently.